663: K.C. Eames is a CPA & Beach Volleyball Player [podcast]

March 12, 2025·27 min·1 clip

Casey Eames explains how her intense volleyball career burned her out, making her question her entire identity.

Beach volleyball gets the first serve. Casey Eames starts with her sand-court side, and John Garrett turns the warm intro toward who she is beyond the job title. The conversation has the show's familiar shape: hobbies, passions, and the life outside work that can make people more interesting at work. Then volleyball takes over. Casey talks about showing up, sticking with it, and trusting that hard days still count. Work slips into the conversation without feeling forced. The sport gives them a clean way to talk about professional life, especially those days when everything feels rough and you start wondering whether you know what you are doing. John catches that thread and brings it back to childhood: trying different activities, failing without turning it into a crisis, and eventually finding the thing that stuck. It lands because the lesson is plain. Mistakes happen all the time. The point is to come back tomorrow and make fewer of them. That works at work, too. The best stretch connects competitive sports with the pressure professionals feel when a job title starts becoming the whole personality. Burnout comes up directly. Casey had so much volleyball year round that she began wondering what life would look like without constant practice and tournaments. That part feels familiar without getting heavy. John treats it like a mirror, not a lecture, for anyone who has let work crowd out the rest of life. The close stays warm. Pictures, links, the research survey, and the book all get mentioned, but the real ending is the show's usual reminder: people are bigger than what they do.

As heard by us

A beach-volleyball story about burnout, failure, and how outside interests shape the way someone shows up at work.

Casey Eames gives the identity-at-work conversation a grounded, practical angle by connecting beach volleyball with the realities of failure, burnout, and progress.

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Why you'd press play

For when you need a reminder that your job title is not your whole identity.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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